Does anyone else feel like Easter came WAY too fast this year? It seems like I blinked and all of a sudden it's time for the Easter Bunny and egg hunts! If you are feeling a little bit overwhelmed like me, BUT still want to set up Easter activities to keep those little learners busy, here are two easy to set up sensory bins! 💕
Sensory Bin Prep:
Both of these sensory bins have the same base: colored rice.
Colored Rice Recipe:
- Dry rice (measure with your heart 😉)
- A splash of white vinegar (you only need a small amount, I usually use the cap of the vinegar to measure. This is to help spread the food coloring)
- Food coloring (The more drops you use the brighter the color)
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until the rice is fully colored. Lay the rice on a baking sheet until dry and add to the rice to your sensory bin.
Rainbow Rice Easter Eggs Sensory Bin
I want to start by saying my rainbow rice is a mixture of many rice sensory bins that I have saved up and added to a Ziplock bag. I like to keep colored rice on hand for when I need a quick and easy sensory bin set (or when a holiday sneaks up on me).
🐣
On one side of my sensory table I dumped in the rainbow rice, and on the other side I added an egg carton with plastic Easter Eggs.
Then I threw in spoons, child tweezers, and scoops. I did not get fancy with this one! I used what I had on hand and it was PERFECT! 🐣
🐣
And that's it! Now the kids get to play and explore however they want! Some of the toddlers liked to fill up the easter eggs and shake them while others liked filling up the egg carton itself.
While this seems like a super simple sensory bin, it is amazing for working on those fine motor skills. Not only are they transferring rice from one bin to another, they are opening and closing those plastic eggs. And let me tell you that is a tough task for little fingers!
Feed The Bunny Sensory Bin
The second sensory bin I set up has a little bit more direction than the last.
Supplies Needed:
- Green colored rice (see the recipe above)
- Toy carrots (bought at the Dollar Tree)
- Alphabet carrots, big mouth bunny and alphabet tracking sheet (all can be found in this Easter Printable Pack)
- Dot marker to recored the alphabet
On one side of the sensory bin I added the rice, toy carrots and the alphabet carrots. (You will want to laminate the alphabet carrots and big mouth bunny so it can withstand play). 🥕🐰
I burred the alphabet carrots in the rice so it was a surprise each time we picked a letter! 🥕🐰
On the other side of the bin I added a big mouth Easter Bunny as well as an alphabet check list and a bingo dot marker.
🥕
🥕
Now the kids could pick each carrot, identify the letter and feed it to the bunny.
💕 Ways we worked on literacy with this sensory bin 💕
- I mixed both uppercase and lowercase letters in this bin. If the student found the uppercase letter "A" we would hunt for the lowercase letter "a".
- When we found a letter we would sound it out.
- Once we fed the bunny the alphabet carrot we would find the matching letter on our tracking sheet and mark it off with a bingo dot marker.
- Littlemissadventures took this sensory bin one step further and added her own beginning sound letters and use the "Feed the Bunny" tracking sheet to mark the correct letter! Check out her adorable set up on Instragram:
💕
If you enjoyed these Easter activity ideas, you might want to check out my full Easter Week! It is packed full of sensory bins (including the feed the bunny sensory bin😉), dramatic play centers, fine motor activities and so much more!
Leave a comment